Onward and outward, New Europe grew smaller among the crowding suns. Diane rose slowly to view. “Captain to radio room. Forget about everything else. Lock that maser and cut me in on the circuit.” Heim reached for racked instruments and navigational tables. “I’ll have the figures for you by the time you’re warmed up.”
If we aren’t destroyed first. Please… let me live that long. I don’t ask for more. Please, Fox has got to be told. He reeled off a string of numbers.
In his shack, among banked meters that stared at him like troll eyes, Vadász punched keys.
He was no expert, but the comsystem computer had been preprogrammed for him; he need merely feed in the data and punch the directive “Now.” A turret opened to airlessness. A transceiver thrust its skeletal head out for a look at the universe. A tight beam of coherent radio waves speared from it.
There were uncertainties. Diane was orbiting approximately 200,000 kilometers on the other side of New Europe, and Meroeth was widening that gulf with ever-increasing speed. But the computer and the engine it controlled were sophisticated; the beam had enough dispersion to cover a fairly large circle by the time it reached the target area; it had enough total energy so that its amplitude then was still above noise level.
Small, bestrewn with meteoritic dust, in appearance another boulder among thousands on the slope of a certain crater wall, an instrument planted by the men from the boat sat waiting. The signal arrived. The instrument—an ordinary microwave relay, such as every spaceship carries by the score, with a solar battery—amplified the signal and bounced it in another tight beam to another object high on a jagged peak. That one addressed its next fellow; and so on around the jagged desert face of the moon. Not many passings were needed. The man’s-height horizon on Diane is about three kilometers, much greater from a mountaintop, and the last relay only had to be a little ways into that hemisphere which never sees New Europe.
Thence the beam leaped skyward. Some 29,000 kilometers from the center of Diane, it found Fox II.
The problem had been: how could a spaceship lurk near a hostile planet from which detectors probed and around which warcraft spun? If she went free-fall, every system throttled down to the bare minimum, her neutrino emission would not register above the cosmic background. But optical, infrared, and radar eyes would still be sure to find her. Unless she interposed the moon between herself and the planet. No … She dared not land and sit there naked to anyone who chanced close when the far hemisphere was daylit. She could not assume an orbit around the satellite, for she would move into view. She could not assume a concentric orbit New Europe itself, for she would revolve more slowly—thus drop from behind her shield—Or would she?
Not necessarily! In any two-body system there are three points where the secondary’s gravitation combines with the primary’s in such a way that a small object put there will remain in place, on a straight line through the larger bodies. It is not stable; eventually the object will be perturbed out of its resting spot; but “eventually” is remote in biological time. Fox put herself at the most distant Lagrangian point and orbited in the moon-disc’s effortless concealment.
The maneuver had never been tried before. But then, no had ever before needed to have a warship on call, unbeknownst to an enemy who occupied the ground where he meant to be. Heim thought it would become a textbook classic, if he lived to brag about it.
“Meroeth to Fox II,” he intoned. “Meroeth to Fox II. Now hear this and record. Record.
Captain Heim to Acting Captain Penoyer, stand by for orders.”
There could be no reply, except to Lac aux Nuages. The system, simple and hastily built, had been conceived in the belief that he would summon his men from there. If anything was heisenberg at the other end, he wouldn’t know until too late. He spoke into darkness. “Because of unexpected developments, we’ve been forced to lift directly, without passengers. It doesn’t seem as if we’re being pursued. But we have extremely important intelligence, and on that basis a new plan.”
“First: we know there is only one capital ship in orbit| around New Europe. All but two others are scattered beyond recall, and not due back for quite some time, sentry vessel is the enemy flagship Jubalcho, a cruiser. I don’t know the exact class—see if you can find her in Jane’s-but she’s doubtless only somewhat superior to Fox.”
“Second: the enemy learned we were on the planet recalled the two vessels in reach. They are presently accelerating toward New Europe. The first should already commenced deceleration.
That is the lancer Savaidh. The other is the cruiser Inisant. Check them out too; but I think they are ordinary Aleriona ships of their respective classes. The ballistic data are approximately as follows—” He cited the figures.
“Now, third: the enemy probably believes Meroeth is Fox. We scrambled with so much distance between that contrary identification would have been difficult or impossible, and I also we took him by surprise. So I think that as far as he knows, Fox is getting away while the getting is good. But he cannot communicate with the other ships till they are near the planet, and he doubtless wants them on hand anyway.
“Accordingly, we have a chance to take them piecemeal. Now hear this. Pay no attention to the lancer. Meroeth deal with her; or if I fail, she’s no major threat to you. Moreover, nuclear explosions in space would be detected and alert the enemy. Stay put, Fox, and plot an interception for Inisant. She won’t be looking for you. Relative-velocity will be high. If you play your cards right, you have an excellent probability of putting a missile in her while warding anything else she has time to throw.”
“After that, come get me. My calculated position and orbit at the time are approximately as follows.” Again a string of numbers. “If I’m a casualty, proceed at discretion. But bear in mind that New Europe will be guarded by only one cruiser!”
Heim sucked air into his lungs. It was hot and had an electric smell. “Repeating message,” he said. And at the end of the third time: “The primary relay point seems to be going under Diana’s horizon, on our present course. I’ll have to sign off. Gunnar Heim to Dave Penoyer and the men of Fox II—good hunting! Over and out”
Then he sat in his seat, looked to the stars in the direction of Sol, and wondered how Lisa was doing.
Increment by increment, Meroeth piled on velocity. It didn’t seem long—though much desultory conversation had passed through the intercom—before the moment came to reverse and slow down. They mustn’t have a suspicious vector when they encountered Savaidh.
Heim went to the saloon for a snack. He found Vadász with a short red-haired colonist who slurped at his cup as if he had newly come off a Martian desert. “Ah, mon capitaine,’’ the latter said cheerily, “je n’avais pas bu de café depuis un sacre longtemps. Merci beaucoup!”
“You may not have much to thank me for in a while,” Heim said.
Vadász cocked his head. “You shouldn’t look so grim, Gun-sir,” he chided. “Everybody else is downright cocky.”